The Beginning After The End Chapter 526 - 520 : Unflinching

The pocket dimension was drained of all color. A pale radiance coiled around Kezess, manifesting as a dragon, while Agrona drew shadows inward, cloaked in obsidian flames. Kezess remained stationary, yet the dragon let out a wide-jawed roar. Agrona, shrouded in fire, fractured into multiple afterimages that multiplied to the left and right, attempting to surround us. Suddenly, a flash of white fire erupted, blinding me for a second as it incinerated the area where Agrona had been standing.

I refused to blink as I channeled aether into King’s Gambit, straining the godrune’s limits beyond anything I had previously attempted. My perception accelerated, causing time and the movements of the two asuran god-kings to decelerate until I could just barely track them.

The dragon’s head pivoted, tracking the expanding ring of flickering, shadowy Agronas, while pure mana disintegrated the air, stone, and shadows simultaneously. Kezess’s gaze followed the circle in the opposite direction; wherever his eyes landed, an image vanished into a burst of aether.

My senses, heightened by Realmheart, were overwhelmed by the massive release of mana. Agrona and Kezess appeared to be omnipresent, occupying every space at once. The suffocating pressure of their unbridled power clashing was nearly unbearable.

The stone beneath me shifted as the floor was consumed by the dragon's breath. I pushed off against the thin atmospheric aether within the pocket dimension, hovering just as the ground collapsed into a lower level of the fortress.

Aether radiated from me, solidifying into a small vertical ledge beneath my feet. As I braced my soles against it, I condensed aether throughout my body until it detonated within my muscles. I launched backward, creating a shockwave in the mana and aether, while a short blade materialized in my grip. A second burst of explosions surged through my shoulder and arm, driving the blade into a rearward thrust with enough intensity to fracture my bones.

The strike hit an immovable resistance, halting my momentum with a jar that sent a deep ache through my marrow. Looking down, I saw a white-gauntleted hand clamped around my wrist. My gaze shot up to meet Agrona's, who merely raised an eyebrow. In front of me, a thunderous boom echoed as the air from my supersonic movement collapsed back together.

Then, the attack from Kezess engulfed us both.

We disappeared into a white inferno of pure mana.

A dark shadow tore through the white light, and I raised my arms in a defensive stance. The force of the impact sent me tumbling back out of the fire. By the time I regained my balance, aether had already gathered at my injuries, knitting together broken bone and torn flesh.

As the flames died down, I saw the hollowed-out center of Taegrin Caelum. The floor and several levels below had collapsed into a heap of smoldering debris. Above, the ceiling continued to crumble, with the upper chambers melting and warping at the edges, as if they were losing their form in this extradimensional space.

Kezess had hardly moved, save for ascending a few feet. His elegant attire was undisturbed, and not a single hair was out of place. His eyes, glowing like violet lightning, scanned the wreckage, but Agrona was nowhere to be found.

His scorching gaze eventually locked onto me, and a slight frown touched his lips.

A moment later, I felt a mental intrusion.

“Gah!” Regis cried out in shock. “Shit!” My companion was then violently expelled from my body. He pooled on the shattered stone before manifesting his physical form, hackles raised and a low growl vibrating in his throat as he glared back at me.

My throat tightened, making it impossible to swallow. “Regardless of your desire to help me, you will do so.” These words came from my mouth, but the voice was not mine alone. Two deep baritones overlapped—one was mine, and the other belonged to Agrona.

My hands shook as they clenched into fists. My neck strained awkwardly as I looked at Kezess, whose face had become a mask of total apathy. “Go ahead, Kezess. He has us both trapped. Rip out his vitals, melt the meat from his brittle bones. Set yourself free.”

Kezess remained silent and still. His eyes pierced mine, seemingly witnessing the inner conflict between my will and Agrona’s influence.

A blade of aether formed in my hand. It was jagged, dark, and dripped corruption like beads of black blood.

Regis lunged forward, and I pivoted, driving the blade toward his throat. He transformed into shadow and aether, then into fire, as the violet flames surged down the sword. Using the full power of King’s Gambit, I focused inward, purging my body of every scrap of essence that wasn't mine. Like a torrent through a gate, I forced that foreign essence into a single point.

The blade of Destruction sliced upward through my left shoulder joint just as my aetheric armor retracted to reveal the skin. The blade cut through muscle and bone effortlessly and without pain. The tainted limb fell to the floor, consumed by Destruction, and the internal resistance—Agrona’s fight for control—instantly vanished.

My armor reconstructed itself over the wound on my left side. Black smoke and fire billowed from the arm that had been severed moments ago. I retracted my blade, which became straight and bright as I reclaimed control, and then I lunged at the center of Agrona’s reforming mass.

Destruction swirled within the cloud, seeking something to devour. The smoke and fire recoiled, dividing into two clouds, then four, then eight. Each fragment held a tiny spark of Destruction, which was enough to start burning them from the inside. The clouds continued to split as if scattered by a gale until the sparks of Destruction were spread so thin they vanished.

I swung my blade in a wide arc, utilizing God Step to create a dozen points of connection. Each point allowed a fragment of the Destruction blade to pass through and strike one of Agrona’s forms. Instantly, twelve of his cloud manifestations were ignited by amethyst flames and incinerated, but the remaining forms merged back into a perfectly intact Agrona.

Simultaneously, the translucent silver-white dragon surrounding Kezess slammed a claw into the earth, causing the spectral echo of Taegrin Caelum to tremble.

I felt time solidify around me, as if the dragon’s claw was pinning me down. I hesitated for a fraction of a second. I didn't want to be caught by Kezess’s power, but I also feared that breaking the spell completely would provide Agrona an escape route. Through the vast network of thoughts maintained by King’s Gambit, I considered the reality of the fight. Self-preservation took priority.

Resisting Kezess’s aetheric technique as I had before, I broke free from his time stop.

Agrona faltered, suddenly frozen. A tear appeared in the fabric of time; he moved, then stopped, then moved again. Agrona was also resisting the spell. However, it wasn't just time that was hardening; the very air and space were becoming heavy and solid. The atmosphere crystallized around him, forming a pearlescent shell of diamond that encased his flickering form like a coffin. His eyes regained normal motion just as the sarcophagus sealed him inside.

Seeing him immobilized, I dropped to one knee. My right hand covered the clean wound where my left arm had been. It would recover, but it required time.

Kezess finally chose to move, walking gracefully across the ground that repaired itself beneath his feet as he approached the trapped Agrona. I began to shape aether from my core. The armor over my left shoulder opened, and aether flowed out, forming a glowing purple facsimile of an arm rather than new flesh. I stood and tested the limb, moving the fingers and joints. I could feel it in my mind as if it were part of me.

It would suffice until the original grew back.

I stood up, keeping a close watch on both Agrona and Kezess. The basilisk glared at the dragon from his crystal cell. The dragon stared back with equal intensity.

“For my daughter,” Kezess whispered, his voice as cold and hard as steel. He lifted his hand and squeezed it into a fist.

The diamond sarcophagus imploded like a crushed can. The clear stone turned crimson instantly as Agrona’s body was pulverized, leaving his blood and remains trapped within.

At that same moment, Kezess let out a grunt of pain as a black spike pierced his ribs, bypassing his mana and aether defenses.

He spun around, his glare landing on the only person in sight: me. I could see him calculating whether I was the source of the attack.

Gripping the Destruction blade tightly, I shook my head, preparing to answer his unspoken accusation.

Behind him, the crystal shattered and melted away. The blood and gore vanished as if they had never existed, and a dark, mocking laugh filled the pocket dimension.

Recognizing the intrusive threads of void wind and sound mana in my mind, I realized it was an illusion. I severed the mental connections and traced them back to their origin. Applying the mechanics of mana cancellation, I disrupted the mana with my aether, shattering the spell.

A ripple of purple energy surged through the area, ending the illusion, but there was no time to observe the outcome. From the center of my pulse, a whirlwind of hand-sized black spikes filled the dimension. I shielded my face with my aetheric arm, which expanded into a buckler that cracked and repaired itself constantly under the relentless barrage.

Kezess’s mana flared, and a white light washed over the pocket dimension like paint. The air became still. As the light faded, the castle appeared undamaged, with all the destruction from our fight completely reversed. The scent of fresh rain and earth filled the air, providing a strange sense of calm. The spikes had disappeared, and Agrona was standing exactly where he had been before the conflict started.

I focused all my senses—King’s Gambit, Realmheart, my aetheric perception, and my own intuition—entirely on Agrona. It was truly him; the illusion was gone.

Agrona looked pale and was covered in sweat. Across from him, Kezess was bleeding from his side. A faint aetheric spell was active on him, fighting off the weakening corruption in his system.

A silence fell over us. Agrona, unable to remain quiet, broke the stillness. “Kezess. Kezzy. I’ve spent hundreds of years getting ready for this. You didn't think I’d plan to wipe out the dragons without a way to defend against your ultimate weapon, did you? Especially after learning what Arthur can do...” His calm face turned grim as he looked at me. “And you, Arthur. You’re holding back. Conserving your power. How much longer can you sustain this? It was a mistake to come in here. The logical choice would have been to send me in and lock the door, letting us kill each other.”

Agrona’s face twisted into a cunning smirk. “But you can't help yourself, can you? That hero complex won't let go. You had to be here to witness my end. To do it yourself, if possible.” He raised his eyebrows. “Well? Are you capable?”

I responded with a focused blast of aether from the palm of my translucent purple hand. A low whoosh was followed by a roar as a cone of violet energy surged toward him. He dodged backward, then charged straight at me, a black sword appearing in his hand.

Behind me, Kezess was gathering energy for a major attack. The pressure was so intense I nearly missed the tiny points of mana forming in my own shadow. Instead of blocking Agrona’s blade, I God Stepped twenty feet away, leaving behind pieces of my armor where thin spikes had shot up. I jumped again and again as spikes erupted everywhere I landed, snapping like jaws.

Without King’s Gambit, I would have been hit. Agrona’s attacks were too rapid for normal sight or mana-sense. My focus was spread thin, but the godrune allowed me to manage a hundred different details simultaneously.

The silver-white dragon stepped forward, shielding Kezess with its wings against the spikes. Kezess remained still with his eyes shut. As I darted around to avoid the spikes growing from the floor, my shadow, and the air itself, Kezess seemed totally detached.

However, that wasn't entirely true. Bursts of time, accelerating and decelerating, affected both me and Agrona, saving me on multiple occasions.

Even so, I wasn't fast enough.

Just as I reappeared with aetheric lightning dancing on my armor, a spike drove through my foot and out my knee. The pain turned to numbness instantly, my head spun, and my grip on the godrunes faltered. Sharp agony flared in my hip, chest, and neck. I realized I had been impaled in several spots by thin spikes dripping with black poison.

‘Destruction!’ Regis yelled in my mind. ‘Burn it out—’

My dazed mind shifted toward a beam of intense white light rising from the center of the hall. Kezess had finished his spell and was reaching toward the ceiling, the beam erupting from his palm. The stone above and below him began to collapse in a widening ripple. He opened his eyes, locked onto Agrona, and brought his hand down.

The beam sliced the fortress in two, like a sun-bright sword reaching from the depths to the sky. Even in my state, I felt it burning my skin. My eyes blurred, but I couldn't close them; my face was numb. The floor vanished, and I began to fall.

For a moment, I saw the two halves of the castle towering over me, slowly drifting apart. Sunlight bled through the gray fog of the dimension's barrier. Then, the two sections of the castle slammed back together like massive stone hands, and the light vanished.

I tumbled through the air, looking down through hundreds of levels that looked like shifted fault lines over a dark void. I was plunging into that abyss, unable to control my body or my magic.

Shadows coiled around me, slowing my fall. It was pitch black except for a flickering purple glow. The light intensified, and I realized flames were spreading over me. Between breaths, the numbness was replaced by searing pain.

I let out a scream.

Destruction. Violet fire was coursing through my veins, eating me from the inside.

The pain eventually subsided, and I gasped for air as aether rushed to repair my damaged body. My vision was warped, and my thoughts were sluggish.

“Take it easy, princess, just breathe,” a familiar voice muttered above me.

I floated in the dark as my senses slowly returned.

Explosions echoed from above, and more debris fell past.

I felt Regis’s mind checking on me. Without King’s Gambit active, it was easier for him to enter my thoughts.

I immediately pushed back, hiding certain thoughts in the darkness of my mind.

“Whoa, calm down, princess, it’s just me,” he said, sounding cautious as he held me up.

I cleared my throat, wiped the blood from my eyes, and began to fly on my own. Regis had taken his Destruction form, his massive wings beating to stay airborne. We were surrounded by dark rock on all sides, with a void stretching below. The walls shook every few seconds.

“I had to use Destruction to burn Agrona’s poison out of you,” Regis said as my mind cleared. “The ceiling closed up above us.”

I activated Realmheart to search for Kezess and Agrona, expecting to sense their fight.

I felt nothing. I surmised that Agrona had sequestered us in a corner of the dimension and sealed it off.

It felt like a trap. Testing my strength after having Destruction in my system, I channeled aether into King’s Gambit. My mind sharpened as the crown glowed on my forehead. “He wants me to break back into the main space. Tearing the dimension would give him a chance to escape while trapping Kezess and me here.”

“Would that actually work?” Regis asked, fire flickering in his mouth.

I shrugged, bobbing in the void. “If I were certain I could trap them both here forever, I would. But this is Agrona’s territory. He knows its secrets better than I do.”

Besides, I thought privately, if my visions from the final keystone were accurate, I wouldn't be able to keep this place sealed much longer anyway.

I probed the edges of the dimension with my spatium godrune. Then, I channeled aether into Aroa’s Requiem. A golden light mixed with Regis’s violet flames, and particles from the godrune flowed down my arm into the empty space, gathering on the walls and ceiling. It took a moment.

The stone began to disintegrate as if eaten by insects. The sounds of the battle grew louder, and the walls shook with greater force. Half-formed floors rippled, and the ceiling finally gave way.